This is a journal of my Lake Anna striper fishing experiences. I have a striper guide service on Lake Anna. If interested, please visit www.jimhemby.com for more information. I'll keep this blog strictly about the fishing conditions. Enjoy!

All photos in my blog posts are clickable, so you can see a larger version.

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Sunday, November 27, 2011

How about this Deer? A friend who belongs to my hunt club harvested this one yesterday. The buck was with another buck chasing a doe that was in estrus. I heard from many people yesterday that they witnessed Bucks chasing does. Looks like the rut is late this year!

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Sunny and warm, Water Temperature 55* and Clear.Anthony took his neighbor from when he lived on the lake fishing today. They got out early before daylight to catch bait with intentions of catching fish this morning. They caught a couple fish early but before they knew it boats were everywhere, not only fishing boats but skiers and Jet skiers. The fish turned off until boat traffic settled back down later in the afternoon when they caught plenty of fish. Pat kept a few fish and released the rest of the days catch. The holiday weekend coupled with the beautiful weather prompted most people with boats to get out on the water to enjoy one of the last pretty weekends of the year.

Friday, November 25, 2011

Although fishing has been very good lately I have been looking forward to hunting this year with my grandson Michael. I fish for a living and one of my other passions is hunting. The lake gets pretty busy this time of year with fisherman so I take time to avoid the traffic of the lake by relaxing in the woods. Michael has been hunting with me since he was 2 years old and is as passionate as I am about the outdoors. I have passed on dozens of Bucks this year and was hoping to see a nice one while Mike hunted with me over his Thanksgiving vacation from school. He is 6 years old and still a little too small to use and even fit a weapon that will kill a deer with an ethical shot but next year will be his first year of carrying a weapon. His best friend [Mosby] is a bird dog that I converted to a Deer dog that we take out into the woods whenever we can. This morning we were hunting a 400 acre property with 10 other hunters putting on drives to move the deer around. Mike and I were the drivers and we were taking Mosby in to an area where we knew big Bucks were living. We had only walked about 200 yards when I saw Mosby's head rise up into the air then immediately he took off. Within seconds he was barking every breath. He ran the deer almost out of hearing then the next thing we knew he had turned and his barks were getting louder and louder. I told Mike that the deer was coming our way and to get ready and be alert. Mosby was only about a hundred yards out when Mike whispered "Its a big Buck". I threw a round of OO Buck into the deers shoulder and the deer expired immediately. I don't remember who's heart was pumping the loudest, Mosby's for running the deer and bringing it to his two best friends, Michaels for experiencing the excitement of the hunt or my heart, being able to share my life's passions with my grandson who is as enthusiastic as I am about hunting and fishing. Hopefully next year Michael will take his first Whitetail Buck. The deer was a 4 1/2 year old buck that had been seen on the property over the last 3 years. It is a main frame 8 point with 6 stickers. Its antlers were well developed with a lot of mass and long tines.I will be back on the lake next week chasing Stripers but in the back of my mind I will be counting the days until Mike comes back to spend time with him. He will make the decision whether to hunt or go fishing.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

DP wanted to take his son Anthony fishing today so he caught bait and put out spread of planner boards pulling shallow flats. The boat traffic was pretty bad today but they managed to hook up with some nice fish. Anthony really enjoys fishing taking after his daddy DP and his granddad Donnie Seay, long time resident of the lake who many moons ago use to take everyone's money in Bass tournaments on the lake. It is great to see traditions passed down through the generations.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Cloudy and Warm, Water Temperature 55* and Clear.Couldn't fish yesterday due to the high winds and after looking at the weather this morning it appeared today was going to be the best day of the week to fish so I called Anthony up to see if he could get off work this afternoon and it didn't take him long to answer. I met him at the lake about 1 this afternoon, caught 40 10 inch Gizzards and set out a spread of a dozen boards and a bobber. I found an area where there were no other boats and where the "Jump fisherman" would not encroach on us. Just as we put our spread out a guy that had been winterizing his jet ski put it in the water. I told Anthony this guy was going to be a jerk and low and behold he ran a couple circles around us barely missing our boards. Well he messed that area up so we moved to another area that I knew held fish. On our first pass on the area we had every rod on the bank side take hits. The Stripers would blow the baits out of the water a couple times before hooking up. Watching the baits get hit was as much fun as reeling the fish in. We boated 5 on the first pass them made a big circle to hit it again. Anthony did not want any fish today, I wanted 2 and had a friend that wanted 3 so we kept the first 5 fish and decided to release all the rest of the Stripers that we would catch today. By the time we got back to the area where we caught the fish we had baited all the rods and were ready for action. The Stripers seemed mad at these big Gizz and would chase them to the surface and punished the bait before taking it. We worked the area until just after 3 when a front blew through the area. It looked like it was going to pour down rain. We looked at each other and thought the same thing, we had already gone through 30 baits, caught 15 or 16 beautiful Stripers and neither of us wanted to get wet or ruin the afternoon. We emptied the tank of the remaining baits with fish still slamming our Gizzards that were still out. The fish we kept today had big shoulders and were very healthy. The fish we released were all in good shape and will certainly live to fight again. Tis the season for great Striper fishing.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Sunny and Windy, Water temperature 55* and Clear.Anthony wanted to see if he could catch Stripers on a sailboat so he took Jack and Stan out this afternoon to do battle with the wind on Lake Anna. It certainly is a challenge to try and control a dozen planner boards while fighting the wind but by the looks of their catch it appears his trolling motor held the boat long enough for the guys to catch a few nice Stripers. Greentop Pro Stan Cobb gave the Bass on Lake Anna a break today also by laying down his casting rods opting out for pulling big Gizzards around the lake. When they weren't fighting fish or the wind Stan was enjoying watching and playing with Anthony's Lowrances, he has a HDS-10 and a HDS-8 on his dash using the 10 for Structure Scan, the 8 for sonar and a HDS-7 up on the bow which he uses for catching bait and also networking with the others to view sonar reading from the stern. Regardless of the weather these "High Tech Rednecks" enjoyed their day off today and took home a couple of fish for the table tonight.